


compass points you home

by vindice



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Devotion, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Heartache, M/M, Parallel Universes, Reincarnation, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, YGOShipfestSVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 03:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17779568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindice/pseuds/vindice
Summary: It’s like this: Ryou lost it all once, twice, and again. All in one place. He has the opportunity to make it work this time. He’ll be damned if he doesn’t.





	compass points you home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letainajup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letainajup/gifts).



> Hi super-lovely-collection! I am excited to tell you I’m your Secret Valentine, and here’s my Valentine’s gift for you! ♪( ´▽｀) ♡
> 
> I don’t know how you feel about Mastershipping (Kaiba/Otogi) so I apologize in advance for that. It just sneaked out on me haha.
> 
> So, without further ado, have this fluffy fake/pretend relationship, with lots of fluffy and nostalgic feelings, and background nosy but well-intended families!

“This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done.”

Ryou allows the amused tilt of his lips to be hidden into his companion’s neck, the body underneath shuddering ever so slightly as his mouth touches skin. His arms wind casually over broad shoulders, and the hands keeping him close tighten their hold on his hips for a moment.

“Even more stupid than-”

“Let’s not do this,” Bakura snaps through gritted teeth. His smirk never falters.

Ryou chuckles fondly, too high on contentment and the giddy feeling making his insides ticklish and warm. “For someone who doesn’t know how to dance, you’re hanging in there pretty well, big guy.”

“Tch, y’know that’s not it,” Bakura tuts, twirling him around. “I don’t _like_ dancing. I know how to and I’m awesome at it, thank you very much.”

“Of course you are,” Ryou allows, because it’s true. If nothing else, this life granted him that much. The back of his hand caresses Bakura’s cheek for a fleeting second.

His other scowls playfully, as if knowing his thoughts. Ryou doesn’t mind in the slightest.

Bakura pulls him back into his arms, but his hold is gentle even when firm.

He does that, sometimes. Holds him reverently, almost. Watches him like he can’t believe he’s there, right before him. That everything they’ve been through wasn’t just a feverish dream.

Ryou can’t blame him, when he looks at Bakura the same way. As if expecting him to vanish if he even so much as blinked. As if he would slide through his fingers like the sand of the desert did after the Millennium Ring fell down the gaping hole of the stone, Bakura gone long before that.

He will never forget when he found himself in this strange parallel universe after the last duel, where monster cards were a TV show and the Millennium Items didn’t exist as far as he could tell. How the only reason he woke up at all was because he had been hauled out of his dreamless sleep, pulled towards _something_ that at first he couldn’t tell.

Once he did, though. The moment he pinpointed the feeling of his other half’s imprint, it was like a thread tugging them closer, tying them together when they found one another.

“Remind me again why are we doing this?” Bakura asks, does that thing in which he later denies to have been pouting even though he totally is.

“Because it’s our best friends’ wedding, _my brother’s,_ and your sister and my siblings are watching us like hawks,” Ryou says with a cheerful grin when the song allows Bakura to move them, so that his back is turned to both Seto and Ryuuji where they’re swaying their way around the ballroom, and Kisara and Amane standing near the beverages, not so subtly staring at them. “And they keep trying to set us up on blind dates when we clearly don’t want to be in a relationship at the moment.”

Bakura looks over his shoulder and screws up his face in disgust. Ryou giggles and tugs lightly at a stray strand of hair in the back of his head, where his braid is coming loose. Bakura clicks his tongue, does an awful job at hiding his own amusement.

“Who said I don’t wanna be in a relationship?” He says after a brief moment, smiling crookedly, handsomely. The song changes into a more casual, upbeat tune. Their pace slows though they remain in the same position. Not that it really matters since their families are the only ones still present, everyone else having left a while ago. “Maybe I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

Ryou doesn’t remark his word choice, doesn’t point out his use of _moment_ instead of _person._

Instead he bites his lip and watches with rapt attention the domino effect settle: Bakura stares at his mouth, and Ryou follows the movement of his throat when he swallows. Bakura’s hand slides almost unconsciously to the small of his back, and Ryou’s fingers settle back at the base of Bakura’s neck, caressing his jaw. It makes his other self shiver and Ryou’s belly flutters at that.

He can’t help the soft smile. Ryou stares with half-lidded eyes into those beautiful rubies darkening alluringly. “Good to know, partner.”

This, too. A thing they do. A different dance, around each other, no need of music when they have their own unique tune singing in their core.

They keep pushing their boundaries to see who snaps first, who gives in. Possessive but silent, blazing. Just what their thoughts have always been—always waiting, always present. Reminding the other who they belong to.

The moment it downed on them that this was real, back at the beginning, that no shadow magic making illusions was involved, Bakura started to seek him out at the most unexpected times and for all possible reasons, no matter how startling some of them were. Three a.m. trips to Welcia to buy anything their first-aid kits could be missing; four p.m. breakfasts at IHOP to nurse a hangover; sneaking out of their houses at five a.m. to watch the sunrise from the outskirts of Domino under the pretense of making fun of the couples already there.

Ryou is no better, dragging him out on Saturday mornings to go to antique shops, and walking through the mall just close enough their hands touch whenever Ryuuji needs new clothes but doesn’t want to go out. Buying knives worth of a collection and handing them when they’re about to take off separate ways under the rain.

It’s like this: Ryou lost it all once, twice, and again. All in one place. He has the opportunity to make it work this time, with the only person that’s ever mattered to him, the other half of his soul, the man that saw him grow and grew beside him along the way, but ultimately had to part ways with. Now that they’re reunited, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t.

Ryou doesn’t believe in gods. Not since he gained the overlapping memories of a child in different eras, on his knees, tear-stained face, eyes screwed shut and silent, blood curdling screams of _why why why_ on the tip of his tongue. A memory he took with a hand on his chest a heavy heart a knife a stack of paper where to write–

He’s always liked the concept of heaven, though. A place where people don’t have to worry once they pass on, they just lean back and breathe and wait. Wait patiently for thoughts, for prayers, and murmurs and tired sighs. All while the living keep going until they can finally meet again.

Writing letters, like his already quivering faith, had been a last, desperate attempt of a lonely boy to cope.

Until Bakura came.

The pain didn’t disappear, of course, but… with Bakura everything was less shades of gray. Even throughout his plan coming into play, everything had been a little brighter. Slowly but surely. Steady.

And then the Egyptian sand swallowed the Ring and even that sliver of self-imposed hope faded, left him with an empty chest and unable to think or feel anything other than the hollow ache of heartbreak.

But, once in a while he wonders—wonders if this is maybe all of his prayers being answered at once. If by any chance some higher entity _does_ really exist, then maybe this life they’re living with a softer, less broken version of the people they used to know, the two alive at the same time, is them answering to the calls he made a lifetime away.

So, he thinks—a different place, different them but still somehow the same, maybe even better thanks to what this life has returned, given to them. He thinks he’ll be such a fool if he doesn’t make the most out of it.

The song has changed yet again while he lost himself to his thoughts. It’s halfway through, but Bakura hasn’t stopped swaying them, even though this is more animated than a ballad. His arms circle Ryou’s waist, keeping them flush together in a way that is oh so like him now that nobody that ever hurt them, inadvertently or not, is here to see them. At some point Ryou himself has rested his head on his shoulder and closed his eyes.

He’s still pleasantly surprised to smell the perfume he got him three Valentines ago as a joke, the one he knows for a fact he only uses for special occasions. His other half isn’t the type to care about his appearance beyond what those he loves thought.

Bakura turns his head a little causing him to nuzzle him, and Ryou can’t help but silently sigh in satisfaction.

“Hey,” he mutters after a while. Seto is eyeing Ryuuji with that look Ryou knows all too well from walking in on them in the office a little too early in the mornings, or before a meeting, or after New Years dinner. Or anything at all, really. If it were any other time and he himself didn’t want to flee as well, Ryou would stay dancing in the ballroom all night with Bakura, if only to see his brother flustered and his best friend’s annoyed not-a-pout. At Bakura’s hum, he says, “Let’s go get some greasy burgers and curly fries.”

Bakura leans back a little, just enough to look him in the eye. He grins. “Fucking finally. Not to be rude, the food was great an’ all, but I’d kill for one of those strawberry milkshakes you like so much right now.”

It’s the little things like this that make it easy to get along with Bakura. That makes his heartbeat lighter and steadier, and his chest warm in contentment. That make him never question, never wish for anything that isn’t what he already offers to him. What they already have.

Ryou has never wondered what exactly loving someone else is like, feels like. Sometimes when they’re like this, so close that Ryou’s skin can taste Bakura’s warmth, the one the spirit didn’t have before, he does like to think about that, how he feels. But he always finds there’s nothing new to it, because for him there’s never been a time where he wasn’t already in love, already loving one and only one person.

“Ah,” Ryou nods knowingly. His eyes twinkle. He knows, because Bakura’s are doing it too. “The one we hid in after the golden snitch incident.”

Bakura snorts a chuckle. His heart soars; it feels like a victory.

After they say their goodbyes to their families and congratulate Ryuuji and Seto one more time with the promise—and the underlying threat—of seeing them off in the morning before they leave for their honeymoon, Ryou takes Bakura’s hand and starts walking out of the reception hall.

It’s late at night, or early in the morning depending on who one were to ask. Their destination is a cozy twenty-four seven dining near their apartment, and it’s a Sunday, so there’s no rush.

In that instant, they have all the time in the world.

They are staring at the moon, standing in the parking lot just outside the big doors of the venue, Bakura’s arm wrapped around his waist. Ryou rests his head on his shoulder and turns a little, burying his nose right above his collarbone, the spot where shoulder meets neck. They remain silent, just enjoying the peaceful moment. It makes Ryou sigh content.

It’s only natural for Bakura to turn sideways, for them to mold together as one. And it’s only natural too, when Bakura leans down, and kisses him. Gently, slowly.

Ryou looks at him through dazed eyes when they break the kiss. A part of his momentarily broken brain reminds him to breathe, though he can’t remember why exactly that’s important at the moment.

“Nobody’s watching.” Ryou whispers.

Bakura smiles, just as breathless. There’s a softness to his eyes. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
